October 1, 2001
Since Sept. 11, Washington has taken the sharpest moves in decades in militarizing the U.S., accelerated the assault on democratic rights and put the military on a war footing in preparation for a brutal assault on the people of Afghanistan and other countries such as Iraq.
The Pentagon has begun activating tens of thousands of reservists and National Guard troops to fly air patrols between Washington and New York, serve as police at military bases, and supplement regular forces in intelligence gathering, engineering, computers and foreign languages. Coast Guard personnel have boarded and searched more than 300 vessels in San Diego Harbor and shut down the Boston harbor.
The war moves are drawing caution from imperialist rivals such as Paris and Berlin, who fear Washington will use the military assault to strengthen its position in the world.
October 1, 1976
CHICAGO — Clovis Warren and Arthur Lewis died in mid-July after years of battling the Social Security Administration for benefits due them as coal miners dying from black lung disease.
Hundreds of Appalachian mine workers have migrated to Chicago. Poor health conditions and safety violations in the plants here cause their respiratory ailments to worsen, speeding the debilitating and frightening effects of black lung.
The coal and steel industries have reaped vast profits from the blood and lives of miners. They should be forced to provide environmental controls to assure safety in the mines. They should be forced to provide free, high-quality medical care for miners and their families.
It is a matter of simple justice to those who have suffered and destroyed their lungs digging their own graves, as did Clovis Warren and Arthur Lewis.
October 1, 1951
The Cicero indictments are a challenge to the labor movement, the Negro people and every American interested in preventing frame-ups and protesting injustice. If a lawyer can be indicted in Illinois for going into court to defend the rights of a Negro victim of mob violence, there is nothing to stop the spread of such practices to other parts of the country.
If the capitalist class can get away with such a frame-up of Negroes, it will be emboldened to attempt the same methods to intimidate the labor unions, opponents of war, inflation and the witch-hunt, and anyone else who fights capitalism.
The frame-ups can be smashed if the labor, Negro and liberal movements apply themselves vigorously to the job that has to be done. The people have to rely on themselves in mass meetings, picket lines, demonstrations of independent strength, mass action.